Energy & Power Generation

The Chinese Are Going to Kick Our Asses

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We’re going to power our economy with scavenged energy[PDF] from intermittent, low-density solar and wind power. The Chinese are going to power their economy with eight-packs of nuclear reactors that they roll off assembly lines in vast numbers. 

We have a culture that holds engineers and inventors in contempt and views new technologies first and foremost as threats to be mitigated. The Chinese nearly worship engineers and inventors and adopt new technologies with a reckless disregard of all but the most gross dangers. 

Our best and brightest dream of going into politics or “non-profits” that exist largely to suppress commerce and invention. The Chinese best and brightest go into engineering and business and try to figure out how to make and sell things. 

Our intellectual class spends its time trying to generate contempt of our institutions, history and traditions and to shatter our belief in our own capabilities. China’s intellectual class spend its time creating and instilling a fierce confidence in their institutions, history and traditions and building a belief that they can accomplish anything. 

The Chinese have become the lean and mean, energetic barbarians sweeping down on a fat, decadent and leaderless civilization. They have the same cowboy attitude towards technology and commerce that drove America to the top in late 1800s. They are going to do to us what we did to Europe in the pre-WWII era and for the same reason. The difference this time is that the Chinese share no cultural bond to the rest of the world as America did to Europe. 

They will face political challenges in the short term, especially in a global recession, but long-term they will dominate for the simple reason that they will be able to keep the lights on and we won’t. 

I suppose we’ll learn to adopt an attitude of superior impotence just as the Europeans have done. China will do great things while we will claim we’re too wise and mature to attempt such things. 

We shall live in interesting times.

It’s Still a Stupid Design

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More on the Aptera [h/t Instapundit]:

Aptera Motors has rolled out the first pre-production model of the 2e, an all-electric three-wheeled two-seater that gets the equivalent of 200 mpg and goes 100 miles on a charge. 

Wow, an entire 100 miles. That gives you an operational radius of 50 miles. I live in Texas. Even on a one-way trip, you couldn’t move between any two of most of the cities in the state. Most people outside of the dense urban enclaves on the coasts need more range than that. 

It’s still a stupid unidimensional design. That still doesn’t stop me from wishing I could afford to waste some money on one. 

Asleep at the Throttle

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Who is in charge of the clattering train?
The axles creak and the couplings strain,
and the pace is hot and the points are near,
and sleep hath deadened the driver’s ear,
and the signals flash through the night in vain,
for death is in charge of the clattering train

In his memoirs, Winston Churchill mentions that he thought of this poem, which he had read as a boy, during the appeasement days of the 1930s. I was reminded of it by this post.

The original poem, which appeared in Punch magazine, is here and is pretty good.

Also, here’s the whole issue of Punch in which the poem originally appeared.

Disaster Resistant Energy Sources

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I was reading about the new Hyperion mini-nuke power generator [h/t Instapundit] and as I read through the possible uses, it occurred to me that such generators would be very useful things to have in the event of almost any natural or manmade disaster. This in turn led me to think about how “alternative” electricity sources, i.e., wind and solar  would fare under disaster conditions. 

We all should think hard about this before we put all our energy eggs in the fragile alternative basket. 

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Too Much Political Dog Language

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In 2004, I wrote about dog language and political language:

When you talk to a dog, you don’t have to worry a lot about using syllogisms, complete sentences, good analogies, or crisply-argued chains of logic. What he’s looking for is keywords…particular words and short phrases…like “nice doggie” or “here” or, especially, “dinner.”

It strikes me that, increasingly, the way in which politicians address the American people is very similar. It’s enough to say the words that are supposed to elicit the conditioned responses…”jobs” or “health care” or “education.” There is increasingly litle effort to specify exactly what cause-and-effect relationship will cause these good things to come to pass, and why one approach might be better than alternative approaches. This behavior is most noticeable among Democrats, but is by no means totally absent among Republicans.

Both Obama and McCain used political dog language in this campaign. Because of his superior oratorical skills, Obama could pull it off better. I think McCain would have been better served by cutting down on the dog language a bit and making more actual arguments on behalf of his policies. With regard to energy, for example, he spoke about the need for nuclear and wind and solar and all kinds of other sources, maybe including gerbil-powered treadmill generators. Which comes across as a grab-bag of ideas and probably also makes people think, “Well, with all those options, nuclear can’t be all that important.”

It would certainly have been possible for McCain to come up with a three or four sentence explanation of why wind and solar are not a complete answer…like, “When you want to wash your dishes at 9 PM, the sun may not be shining. When you want to run your heat pump on a snowy, icy day, the wind may not be blowing.” He would still have had an uphill battle, because wind and solar have been invested with a quasi-religious significance (as long as they stay theoretical), but would have done better than with the grab-bag approach. The same in other policy areas.